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PRSM Whitepaper Provides Supplier Insights into Competitive Sourcing Options for Retail Facilities

 
The Professional Retail Store Maintenance Association (PRSM), the authority on retail, multi-site facilities management, today released a white paper that provides supplier insights on sourcing options for retail facilities. The white paper, the second in the series of three, titled “Supplier Insights into Competitive Sourcing” provides industry professionals with information on how the various sourcing models affect their business. It represents information collected from a cross section of exceptional PRSM suppliers in an objective depiction of the current sourcing landscape. The paper also highlights key factors that influence suppliers and FM organizations operating within the various service models.
 
“Supplier Insights into Competitive Sourcing” emphasizes that today’s retailer FM professional must understand that they are running a business – not just sourcing vendors and processing work orders. They must learn to operate in a data-driven world and handle information that can be very difficult to evaluate. The education and expertise of today’s FM professional requires that they be far more educated about their business than the facilities managers of the past. Among other things, they should have systems in place to enable them to collect, monitor and understand their data.
Some key points noted in the white paper include:
    •    A retailer’s selection of the service model they use is predominantly motivated by their interest in controlling cost.
    •    In the digital world of understanding facilities maintenance services, data is king.
    •    One of the key factors enabling the formation of large Integrated Service Providers and Select Service Providers has been their ability to receive and analyze vast amounts of facilities maintenance data.
    •    It is extremely important for retailers to remember that any contract that gives significant control of the business to the supplier must be written in a way that allows for seamless return to the retailer or transfer to another supplier, should circumstances dictate.
    •    Retailers transitioning to an outsourced or significantly co-sourced model may lose the ‘local service touch’ as the financial drivers for the ISP have difficulty in accounting for this.
“The ‘Supplier Insights into Competitive Sourcing’ white paper drives home the fact that a supplier’s and retail FM’s processes and operations must adapt and change with the times,” said Patricia Dameron, Executive Director of PRSM. “In the long run, those that do not embrace the new data driven realities, nor update & modernize their operations and procedures accordingly, are at risk of being replaced by their competitors that embrace this change.”
 
In September 2011, PRSM published the white paper “Understanding Retail Facilities Sourcing.” That paper, the first of a three part series, presented a strategic and tactical overview of the basic facilities services models (in-sourcing, co-sourcing and out-sourcing). The third in the series will be released at PRSM 2012 National Conference in mid-April.
 
For more details on this white paper and the series, please visit the PRSM Resource Center .

About the Professional Retail Store Maintenance Association (PRSM)
PRSM is the authority on retail and multi-site facilities management. For more than 16 years, PRSM has been the leading membership organization empowering retail facilities professionals by delivering industry best practices, education, forums and partnerships. PRSM has an actively engaged community of multi-site retailers and reputable vendor partners who value business relationships, lifelong learning, industry credibility and recognition. Members depend on PRSM to help them achieve success and a competitive advantage through quality programs and resources.

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